Welcome to the dusting off and resumption of “Watching old Avalanche games”, kind of the PG hockey version of “Dave’s Old Porn.” As I said in my first installment (gulp) five years ago, call it “time capsule beat reporting.” About six years ago, a gift of about 500 Avalanche games from the past – all on VHS – was given to me as a gift. So, when I play them here, it’s for the first time ever that I’ve actually seen the broadcast. Most or all of these games, I was in the press box, not watching on TV.

To steal from Bill Simmons, I’ll keep something of a running diary of the game here, and tell stories. I mean, I’m old enough now where “telling stories about the past” is something I probably will have to start doing more and more. Today’s contest: April 18, 1999, Dallas Stars at Colorado. This game has some significance for one good reason: it was the final regular-season hockey game ever at McNichols Sports Arena.

The news: Jamie McGinn of the Avalanche was one of 16 NHL players to elect to go to arbitration today. I don’t think I need to explain the process of arbitration to my smart readers here.
Basically, if the Avs and McGinn can’t agree on a number for his next contract, an NHL-assigned arbitrator will do it for them between the assigned NHL period of July 20-Aug. 4. This article explains the arbitration process.

A team and the player who elected arbitration can settle at any time before the actual hearing. I don’t know for sure what will happen, but very often “cases” are settled before they get that far. Arbitration is a sour experience for player and team, and efforts are made to the extreme to avoid those situations.

Plenty of negative arbitration cases have permanently soured player on team, and vice-versa. Former Avs goalie Tommy Salo is one such cautionary tale, with the Islanders in 1997. Salo reportedly was reduced to tears. Basically, an arbitration case means a team tells the player, face-to-face, why it doesn’t want to pay him as much as he wants. It brings up all kinds of statistical proof as to why not. You don’t think anything but bad feelings can result from this?

So, while I don’t know what will happen, my hunch is something will be worked out before the case goes to “trial.” There is a chance the Avs could lose McGinn for nothing, but that would be at their own choosing. If a team vehemently disagrees with an arbitrator’s ruling, it can “walk away” from the decision, which would make the player an unrestricted free agent. That would be highly, highly unlikely with McGinn.

But how much does McGinn want? Don’t have that exact info. either, but McGinn made $680,000 last season, and he scored 20 goals in 78 combined games with San Jose and Colorado. David Jones scored 20 goals for the Avs last season too, and just got a four-year, $16 million contract.

Here is McGinn’s problem, though, if he is thinking of wanting anything close to $4 million a year: Jones scored 27 the season before that, while McGinn had 12 goals in 61 games the year before, and all of one goal in 49 games the year before that.

I’m not suggesting McGinn is asking for $4 million year. As a restricted free agent, he almost surely knows he can’t expect the same kind of payday as a UFA guy. But he does have a 20-goal season under his belt, and 20 is the new 40 in the NHL today. With goals so hard to get, McGinn has that magical “20” leverage on his side, and I’m sure he’s wanting at least a doubling of his last salary. My guess is an arbitrator would give it, too.

As hardcore Avs fans know, however, going to arbitration comes with risks for Avs players. Pierre Lacroix is still the team’s president, and he had a well-documented history of releasing of trading players not too long after they took him to arbitration or held out during training camp/season over a contract. Scott Young, Sandis Ozolinsh, Valeri Kamensky, Chris Simon, Chris Drury – those are just some of the names that pop to mind of guys who did that and were soon banished from the organization.

So, McGinn should probably proceed with caution based on this team’s history.

What is McGinn worth on a new deal? I’d say about $1.5 million on this next year. It’s great that he scored 20 goals, but his overall point total was still only 37. His teams got just under half a point per game from him last year. Not bad, but worth $3-4 million a year at this point? No.

NEWARK, NJ - JULY 20: Ilya Kovalchuk of the New Jersey Devils poses for photographs following the media opportunity announcing his contract renewal at the Prudential Center on July 20, 2010 in Newark, New Jersey. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

First off, my take on last night’s benching of Ilya Kovalchuk by the New Jersey Devils. And I just loved this take from the New York Post on the game too.
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Just can’t help but laugh every time over the post-game scenario when one team has a player who hurt a player on the other team with a cheapshot – and vice-versa.
Here’s pretty much how it always goes for the team with the player who did something dirty:Coach: “I didn’t see it. We won the game, so right now I don’t care about anything. I certainly could give a hoot about that other guy over there who was hurt by whatever one of my guys did. We won, so let’s move on.”

And that same coach, if it’s a guy on his team who got hurt by the same incident:Coach: “The league has got to take a look at this. It’s clear from the video what happened. Everyone saw it. It’s not right and it needs to be addressed.”
That pretty much sums up last night’s Wayne Simmonds-TJ Galiardi butt-end to Gally’s privates. If that happened to Anze Kopitar, Terry Murray spends five minutes going over it afterward. But Murray barely addressed the issue last night. Why? Because it happened to the other guy, that’s why. Here’s pretty much that same script from Anaheim’s Randy Carlyle in last night’s Ducks loss at Detroit. This is the same guy who thought there was nothing wrong with Chris Pronger elbowing Tomas Holmstrom’s head through the glass in the playoffs a few years ago.

Another funny take from the increasingly addictive “Down Goes Brown” Maple Leafs blog. This one is hysterical too. And this one too.

How’s Marek Svatos doing in his first year out of the NHL? He’s got a goal and assist in seven games so far for Omsk Avangard of the KHL. Oh, and Sandis Ozolinsh has 19 points in 19 games for Riga Dynamo. … There is a lot of talk among NHL insiders that the league is finally fed up with the situation in Phoenix, and that if a real, new owner isn’t found by New Year’s or so, they’re out of there starting next year. … Believe it or not, there has been scuttlebutt that the Dallas Stars, because of their own precarious financial situation, will have to deal away star Brad Richards at some point this year, because they know they can’t re-sign him. He’ll be unrestricted at the end of the season. … Interesting take on Donald Fehr’s plans to take over the NHLPA from the always thought-provoking Larry Brooks of the New York Post.

Be at the Denver Chop House and Brewery – 19th and Wynkoop, you know where it is – by 4:30 or so on Wed., Oct. 6. That is, if you want to get lots of pictures and maybe an autograph or 20 from members of the Stanley Cup-winning 1995-96 Avalanche. Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy, Peter Forsberg, Claude Lemieux, Valeri Kamensky, Adam Deadmarsh, Mike Ricci, Uwe Krupp, Dave Hannan – they’ll all be there. Everybody except Chris Simon and Sandis Ozolinsh.

Officially, the Avs are starting a “red carpet” procession of players into the Chop House at 4:45 p.m. that day, until 5:45 or so. While there is no official autograph session, those fans with a good spot by the velvet ropes outside will no doubt get some of the players to sign stuff. And, as an added bonus, you’ll be able to mingle with me as I strain for interviews. I might even put some of you to work if I don’t get a good enough spot.

The players will have a private dinner at 6 p.m. or so, not open to the press or public. Of course, they’ll have to come out after that, so autograph opportunities then would present themselves.

Probably the most amazing, double-taking moment of this preseason came Sept. 22, when, in his first game with the Washington Capitals on a tryout basis, former Avalanche forward Matt Hendricks scored a hat trick in the Caps’ 6-2 win over Columbus. Hendricks quickly went from being a tryout guy to signing a one-year, $575,000 contract with the Caps – a $75K raise over what he made last year with the Burgundy and Blue.
I’m happy for the good-natured Minnesotan, who was a key part of the Avs’ run into the playoffs. Why did the Avs not bring him back, you ask?

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.